Create feedback loop between Package Manager users and core devs

[momack2]

I think user research is pretty nifty and would like to see us do more of it. Especially for the many IPFS developers who are pushing on performance and usability improvements to support our 2019 goal to drive usability and adoption by package managers - it'd be great to create more avenues to understand the package manager questions, pain points, and perspective on IPFS. I'd like to see some user research process they could participate in in a light-weight way to get this first-hand perspective.

Some ideas:
Maybe we can aim to have at least one user research call per week that folks can sit in on and/or watch, listen, and discuss on IRC/Slack? Maybe we can direct the team to package manager forums to actively engage with folks who are prototyping on IPFS - or bring those prototypers to this repo for active discussion and support? Maybe the IPFS discussion forum deserves a dedicated spot to collect and discuss this and we ask everyone to respond to at least one question? More ideas welcome! @jessicaschilling @andrew @achingbrain

[andrew]

Related to the Bootstrap the IPFS package manager community OKR

We also have the maintainer-call label documenting existing calls

[jessicaschilling]

As I understand it, discuss.ipfs.io feels like a logical place to start asking these questions, and from there think about ways to drill down more specifically based on the conversations that start in the forum. I'd hate to spin up a series of calls (including their scheduling!) if there are more lightweight ways that we can start engaging with users (at least until we determine if calls are the right way to go).

Also, it seems like we're targeting two separate groups of people in a search for info:

1. Existing IPFS developers who will have thoughts on needs/opportunities for package manager integration;
2. People who aren't existing IPFS developers/users at a significant level, but who are heavily engaged with the package manager community. (@andrew starts to outline some of the stuff these people may want to talk about in issue 17.)

The discuss.ipfs.io forums can help us reach the first group. Thoughts on where to find the second group?